What Have You Found at Our Web Site Lately?

Jonnie Wright, author of The Silver Bullet says, “Your new website is a dandy! Easy organization for those of us who can’t handle too much visual stimulation and who can’t think of the name of the topic they want–fibro fog in action! Love the color scheme too… it’s easy on the eyes! Very professional!”

Some of the great new resources you’ll find at our web
site:

• Our favorite chronic pain sites
• Our favorite health web sites
• Our favorite illness web sites
• Our favorite illness ministries
• Our favorite health ministries

What’s your favorite find? Tell us what you like (or don’t like) about the new site and you’ll be entered to win some lotion from Bath and Body Works!

Volunteer Featured in Her Local Paper

Mary Ann Redondo, a Rest Ministries volunteer, was recently featured in an article, Denville Woman Ispires Awareness of Rare Illness, in New Jersey. Way to go Mary Ann!

The paper says, 

Mayor Ted Hussa hosted a gathering at the municipal building aimed at promoting understanding about the little-understood condition. He proclaimed Tuesday NF awareness day, and about 30 people attended. Hussa organized the event after being approached by Mary Ann Redondo, 54, who cited years of teasing and insensitive comments by people unfamiliar with the disorder…Redondo has NF-Type 1, which affects one in 2,500 people and encompasses other potential complications such as bone deformities, nodules on the iris of the eyes and cancer. NF-Type 2, which affects one in 30,000 births, can result in hearing impairments and cataracts as well as skin tumors.

How Does God Use Your Illness? Ann Shares

I am fifty-two years old, married with a grown son who lives at home, and a very neurotic nine-year-old cat. I have struggled with anxiety and depression since my early teens years, going years without medication, trying to prove I didn’t need it. Finally, a family doctor prescribed Paxil back in the nineties for me. I developed asthma in 1997, becoming very ill.

 

This was the beginning of my re-evaluation of my relationship with the Lord. Lying flat on my back in my bed, I wondered “Why Lord?” The answer was very clear: “Because this is the only way I can get you to submit to Me.”

 

Despite this set back in my health, I enjoyed my career as a corrections counselor. I am intensely interested in other people and what makes them tick. My job was the perfect vehicle for witnessing to hurting people. If a client opened the door, I walked through it.

 

In late 2002, I began to experience some balance, memory, and fatigue problems, which in turn, worsened my anxiety. By the spring of 2003, the stress of trying to hold on to my job, had become too much. One day I found myself looking at my computer screen, unable to understand the document I was viewing.

 

The next eight months were spent trying to pin down a diagnosis. By January of 2004, I had one: multiple sclerosis. With medication, my flare-ups were fairly well controlled, and I realized I was blessed to have the relapse-remitting type of MS.

 

In the summer of 2006, I discovered Rest Ministries. Myself and several other people from my church were trying to start a support group for the chronically ill. I ordered some materials from Rest Ministries, and the group was off and running. Another piece of the puzzle came together when in December of 2007 I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

 

The symptoms are now well controlled by medication. My illnesses and struggles have truly brought me closer to my Lord, and back to Rest Ministries. I have found information on this site to be very helpful to me personally. I also have used this site as a resource shared among the members of the support group.

 

The Lord has truly brought me through the fire, and when I read what others have written in the Sunroom forums, I know I’m in the right place. May He use the knowledge I have gained to His Glory, and to bring other to the Living Water.

In the Word

“But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.”

Psalm 9:18

Fun Little Facts to Amaze Your Friends

(Well, okay… at least your kids) Think you have more than enough information on how your body works from all your doctors appointments and watching Grey’s Anatomy? Well, did you know that women blink twice as many times as men do? Or how about the fact that you use 200 muscles to take one step? (No wonder our feet hurt!) Have ya had a candy bar lately? One human hair can support 3.5 ounces –which is about the weight of two full size candy bars.

Hop on over to this web site to find more of these 100 Weird Facts About the Human Body.

How to Pay Those Impossible Medical Bills

This is an excellent article by Penny McCracken featured on the National Fibromyalgia Awareness web site that we thought provided some steps and insight into what she did to lower some of her bills. And while you’re there be sure to check out this article too: Stay on Top of Your Finances… Even When You’re Lost in Fibrofog . Regardless of your illness there is something to learn!

Longing for Someone to Say… “I’m Proud of You?”

When was the last time you heard these words? A touching book that Lisa recently read and gives 5 stars is I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers by reporter Tim Madigan. And if you really do have a hankering to hear someone say those words, drop by Mister Roger’s web site where he will sing “I’m Proud of You” as well as other classics like “You are Special” and “I’m Still Myself Inside.” And we thought this Presbyterian minister was ministering just to kids! Here at Rest Ministries we think most of us can relate with his messages.

Spreading the Word One Site at a Time

Special thanks to National Association of Catholic Chaplians for listing Rest Ministries as the chronic illness resource and contact. We urge you to check out their site for loads of great resources.

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Hi Lisa, I am completely enjoying myself in the Sunroom! This was just what I needed. I’ve met some incredibly beautiful, brave, gifted people here. The Sunroom reaches people no other network can reach no matter what their outreach. Thank you. I never even knew anything like this existed on the Internet before receiving the HopeKeepers Magazine – and I’m a complete novice, but felt led to create my own network after being on yours. God certainly has a sense of humor I am loving letting all my creative juices flow towards something that blesses people, and I’m so humbled that God would allow me to do something like this.

- “Kimberly-theORGANICgeek”

Cheerful Heart – All You Ever Wanted to Know About… Mustard?

Can you believe there is a mustard museum? According to their web site, “Mustard is the oldest condiment
known. No one knows who first used mustard to flavor food. Mustard seeds have been found in tombs of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs and the ancient Romans used mustard seeds in some of their crude sauces.” If you just can’t wait another day to find out details about this condiment you may squeeze on your corn dog this summer, be sure to visit the museum’s web site.

And He said to them, “Because
of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you,
if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will
say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it
will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. – Matthew
17:20

>Have something silly to share?

Poll – Do You Know Your Doctor’s Faith?

A new survey of 1,144 doctors, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine asked doctors about their own religious beliefs. 54 percent said they think God sometimes intervenes to help patients, 28 percent
do not and 18 percent are agnostic.

Do you know your doctor’s beliefs? If yes, how? We want to hear from you!

>Click here to take the 30-second survey